The Long-Running Poem Series About the Summer of 2016 Inches Toward Autum

August 14, 2006
Bill’s momma was visiting from North Carolina

and over the weekend we took her to the farmers’ market
Brought home huge amounts of bounty
including the makings of a most artistic fruit bowl
nectarines grapes and oranges
and flower arrangement
mixed cosmos and pale pink dahlias
that sat on the dining table together
a late-summer painterly still life
The observant will notice that these are the first dahlias of the autumn
but they are by no means the last
we also got those ones that are so dark red they’re almost black
and the glowing luminous dark pink ones
to go in the vase in the hall
and then Bill brought me some purple ones
as a surprise at work this morning

Much of the rest of our farmer’s market haul
went into a great big late-summer vegetarian feast
that we all cooked in shifts that evening
I made a cranberry bean salad
with tomatoes and shallots and cilantro and lemon
Bill made little yukon gold potatoes
with skinny young blue lake green beans
And Mary Watson made her renowned fresh corn cakes
fried up in a cast iron pan with a
lot
of crisco
which got all over the stove and the walls
a joyful almost giddy mess
that I joyfully almost giddily
scrubbed out of existence the next day